Reservation Graffiti

Reservation Graffiti


Robert Harris, where are you?

chickenbone in the throat reservation white boy dreamer
poor poor so poor the commodity Indians called you poor
YOU ARE HERE skinnyspit half-braid Indian boys beat you
flat earth pressed their ears against your empty stomach

heard this:

jazz hungry one-fourth drum the ice age

basketball on fire hand grenades & horseshoes

song from the film eyelashes broken glass

reverberation

Robert Harris, where are you?

tied tight to the powwow fence Indian girls slapped your face
threw snowballs baseballs rocks woolly mammoths asphalt missles
concrete bullets plastic arrows rubber hatchets razor treaties
spit in your mouth pissed on your shoes called you by your name

said this:

you don't belong
we know what white sounds like
it sounds
like horses drowning
like neon echoing
like flipping a light switch
off

Robert Harris, we are waiting.

Our Indian mothers and fathers have cooked the last good meal
there is foregiveness in the fry bread confession in the chili
in every bar in Springdale we look at ourselves into our face
OBJECTS IN MIRRORS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR we love our sins

believe this:

if you sit down beside me
I'll buy you
beer
show laughter
a hand on your back
when we leave at closing time
together

come back, come back, Robert Harris, there is no one left who
remembers us, remembers the children who set fire to their future
and fancydanced easily.


Sherman Alexie...........from Old Shirts & New Skins